Central Notes: Perkins, Quade, Luhnow

Three of the four teams that reached last year's League Championship Series play in MLB's central divisions. Let's check in on the central with less than four weeks to go before Opening Day…

Glen Perkins will earn $2.5MM in 2013 and $3.75MM in 2014 and 2015 on his new extension with the Twins, Joe Christensen of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune tweets. The deal includes a $4.5MM club option for 2016 with a $300K buyout.

Former Cubs manager Mike Quade told Yahoo’s Tim Brown that he may take the summer off, but will coach again eventually (Twitter link). The Cubs dismissed Quade early in the offseason before hiring Dale Sveum to manage the team.

Astros GM Jeff Luhnow apologized to Rangers president Nolan Ryan and GM Jon Daniels after saying last week that the Rangers spend on the international market “like drunken sailors.” Luhnow said his remarks were taken out of context, according to Brian McTaggart of MLB.com. “It was not a dig against that organization because they’ve done a great job there,” Luhnow said.

You have to wonder where that old cliche statement even came from.. “drunken sailors”.. Maybe from 17-18th century and when ships almost never came into port?

Even when I was in the USN and 1 ship was out to see for 90 days before coming in, most of the crew IMO didn’t go out and get toasted (a sub tender btw) and that was at the time one of the places (subic bay, Philippines) where the local population made most of it’s money from the military.

Anyway.. One of those nearly meaningless terms of speech that must have been true centuries ago.

I understand that 150m spread over 20 years is a LOT of money to you and me, but 7.5m a year to a MLB team is not a difference maker and average amount of money (just throwing this out) many teams spent on the draft, pre the last CBA and regardless.. How much will that 7.5m be deflated to in another 10 years with inflation?

These local TV deals teams get, unless they are the HUGE teams that get mega money.. NYY, Boston, maybe the LAD if mcCourt doesn’t get it auctioned off 1st are not that huge difference maker IMO people make them out to be. Do they help? Sure they do, but not to the great extent they are given credit for unless they are in the half billion dollar range.

The Rangers media deal only kicks in starting 2015. Astros have equivalent media deal (factored into sales price of team) starting in 2013 and have averaged between 2.5-3 million in attendance when they were winning (span of 15 years), which is the same as what Rangers have the last couple of years. So, market wise both are equivalent, Houston is a bit bigger. Thus, Luhnow’s comment. But, having said that Astros are way underspending so that’s not so smart either.

Oh I understand that. It’s 150m TV deals and make or break a franchise over some getting .. Well.. 150m over 20 years.. Not saying that in Houston’s case that TV deal is make or break, but just how much is 7.5m a deal REALLY a difference maker?

Some of these teams are getting nearly that much in revenue sharing.. It’s just PR in my opinion, the big deal over how much they need these local TV deals to make it.

Their deal with Fox Sports is estimated at $1.5B over 20 years or about $80M a year, starting in 2015. The Astros deal with Comcast has also been stated at worth $80M a year starting in 2013, plus the Astros will own 80% of their broadcast network in a co-ownership with the Rockets. The Rangers are already in debt again due to the signings of Beltre and Darvish and won’t come out of it until 2015. The Rangers are pre-investing keeping in mind 2015, while the Astros are not spending until 2013.

Their deal with Fox Sports is estimated at $1.5B over 20 years or about $80M a year, starting in 2015. The Astros deal with Comcast has also been stated at worth $80M a year starting in 2013, plus the Astros will own 80% of their broadcast network in a co-ownership with the Rockets. The Rangers are already in debt again due to the signings of Beltre and Darvish and won’t come out of it until 2015. The Rangers are pre-investing keeping in mind 2015, while the Astros are not spending until 2013.